


cold sweat blues

by vulpesvortex



Series: dadwood AU [11]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidfic, M/M, Puberty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-21 14:29:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7390909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulpesvortex/pseuds/vulpesvortex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Yes!" Geoff crowed. "Okay, okay, it says hot water bottle?! For cramps? Are these cramps, are we certain we are having cramps?”</p>
<p>“I think it’s fair to say we’re having cramps,” Lindsay deadpanned through gritted teeth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cold sweat blues

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for a Dadwood request on [my fic blog](http://voxwrites.tumblr.com). Anon asked for "geoff and ryan trying to do the puberty/period talk with lindsay (who thinks she's got it all figured out anyway) and ryan being the one who's doubting his parenting skills this time cos this is so not in his experience what if he gets it wrong and geoff has to reassure him."
> 
> Set a couple of years in the future of the Dadwood AU.

Lindsay was wrapped in the bedcovers with her battered old cat plushie, curled into the tightest little ball she could manage, trying to press out the pain somehow. Ryan's fingers stroked through her hair. Lindsay wasn’t sure but she thought his hand may have been shaking a little.  
  
"Fuck," she hissed as another throb of pain travelled down her lower back, and that’s how she knew her dad was _really_ worried, ‘cause he didn’t even tell her off for it, like, oh god, was she dying? She’d  thought she had a handle on this stuff, there had been _books_ and that informational video in health class, and they’d had all the proper supplies stocked just in case for the past two years. She might not have had a mom around to really prepare her, but her dads hadn’t left her in the lurch: talks had been had, preparations had been made, they’d even offered to have one of their female friends come over to talk with her.  
  
Which was why it was so frustrating all three of them were sort of freaking out right now.  
  
“I didn’t think it would hurt this much,” Ryan said, clearly distressed by the pain she was in.    
  
“Tell me about it,” Lindsay said bitterly.  
  
“Geoff’s looking things up to make it better,” Ryan tried to assure her helplessly.  
  
Gavin suddenly appeared in the doorway, wide-eyed and clinging to the doorpost a little. “Is Lindsay going to die?”  
  
“Nobody’s going to die,” Ryan said. “Geoff!” he called to the other room. “How’s that Google search coming?!”  
  
“It’s coming, it’s coming!” There was a loud bang as Geoff presumably kicked the desk (or the desktop). The computer beeped. Geoff crowed triumphantly. “Yes! Okay, okay, it says hot water bottle?! For cramps? Are these cramps, are we certain we are having cramps?”  
  
“I think it’s fair to say we’re having cramps,” Lindsay deadpanned through gritted teeth.  
  
Ryan sped up his frantic stroking of her hair. “It’ll be okay, honey,” he said. He felt so _useless_. His daughter was in pain and he couldn’t tell if it was normal for it to be like this the first time, if she would get cramps like this every time. He’d never had a girlfriend he had to help through this, and his sisters had always kept it amongst themselves, behind their own bedroom doors, had always kept the bathroom firmly locked. He’d done his fair share of reading up on what to expect but books and statistics just weren’t the same as personal experience, and this, really, he wasn't ever going to have the parts to experience in person.   
  
They could hear Geoff banging around the kitchen, running through the hallway to root through the closet, running back. Ryan just hoped he’d found what he needed.  
  
After another minute Geoff burst through the door, holding a hot water bottle aloft like baby Simba, a victorious grin on his face. “We are in business! I found this baby at the bottom of the closet.” He strode across the room, wrapping the bottle in a towel as he went.  
  
_Thank God_ , Ryan thought.  
  
Ryan’s eyes fell on Gavin, who watched with a fascinated kind of horror as Geoff pressed the hot water bottle to Lindsay’s stomach and she briefly went lax before curling around it. Lindsay let out a long soft noise that Ryan really, really hoped was relief.  
  
Geoff sat down on the bed next to Ryan, taking one of his hands in his familiar strong grip. He leaned close and whispered, “And I called Barbs, she should be here in about ten minutes.”  
  
Ryan let out a deep breath, feeling some of the rigid tension in his shoulders unknot after what felt like hours. “Thank you,” he said softly. Geoff squeezed his hand supportively, giving him a lazy wink, and Ryan loved him, loved the way Geoff could take things in stride and roll with them, loved how easy things seemed when left in Geoff’s hands.  
  
“You still freaking out?” Geoff asked quietly.  
  
Ryan ducked his head. “Yeah, a little bit.”  
  
Geoff smiled reassuringly. “Rescue is coming.”  
  
“Is that going to happen to me too?” Gavin asked, concerned. He shuffled cautiously into the room.  
  
Lindsay cracked one eye open to glare at him. “No, but you _are_ going to spunk up your shorts,” she said vindictively.   
  
“Lindsay!”  
  
“What?! It’s true,” Lindsay groaned, rolling on the bed. “Fuck, that’s so not fair. I bet spunking your shorts is more fun than this.”  
  
“Look on the bright side, you can have babies,” Ryan teased wryly, rubbing her back. “I had to go to a lot of trouble to get you.”  
  
Lindsay glared at him. “Please tell me you know pregnancy is hell.”  
  
Ryan suddenly realized what he’d said. “Yes, pregnancy is hell, and you definitely should not have any babies for, like, a long time. A _really_ long time.”  
  
“Preferably decades,” Geoff threw in from the sidelines, grinning from ear to ear.  
  
“I don’t know, nine months of not-this is sounding pretty good right now,” Lindsay said, rustling up a grin. She could see Geoff giving her an amused look from behind her dad's back.  
  
“No babies!” Ryan said, his voice shooting up hilariously at the end.  
  
Lindsay laughed. “It’s alright, I’ve already got one anyway.” She winked at Gavin.  
  
“I’m not a baby!” Gavin erupted indignantly, jumping forward towards the bed. "I'm ten!"  
  
Lindsay grabbed his wrist, and Gavin lost a little bit of his peaked look even if Lindsay didn’t drop the smirk. “You are to me, baby brother.”  
  
The doorbell rang.  
  
“That should be Barbs.”  
  
“I’ll go get the door!” Gavin yelled and took his chance to dash from the room.  
  
A moment later, Barbara strode into the bedroom carrying a box. Gavin followed after her, hovering on the step again. Barbara sat down on the bed on the other side of Lindsay from Geoff and Ryan. “Hey, girl. How are you holding up?”  
  
“Is it too late to change into a boy?” Lindsay asked, face buried in Ryan’s thigh. “I could be a boy, I can take Michael at judo.”  
  
“That bad, huh? Poor kitten.” Barbara patted Lindsay's back. “Not to worry, I’m here to show you the good part. I picked up some of the essentials on the way."  
  
Lindsay bit her lip. "We've already got tampons and pads and stuff. My dads got them years ago."  
  
Barbara smiled. "Yes, Geoff mentioned on the phone. But these are the _fun_ essentials." She tipped the box to show Lindsay what was inside. Just at first glance, Ryan discerned a giant box of bonbons, a pair of pink fluffy slippers, a tub of ice cream, a fleece-covered heating pad shaped like a penguin, and a stack of predominantly pink DVDs.  
  
None of _that_ had been in the books.  
  
“Now,” Barbara said, “I think your dads and brother should go make some tea, and we’ll get set up.”  
  
Ryan opened his mouth to protest.  
  
“Tea will help.” Barbara put a hand on his shoulder. “And it will be easier to talk, just us girls, huh, Linds?”  
  
Lindsay was torn for a moment. She didn’t really want Ryan to stop stroking her hair – it was so lovingly nervous and daddish in a slightly annoying but sweet way. It reminded her of when she was little and would fall asleep in his lap for hours, feeling safe as could be – but she also had an idea of the kind of things Barbara wanted to talk about, and she really didn’t need an audience of her two concerned dads and little baby brother as Barbs explained how to use a tampon, so. She lifted her head from Ryan’s thigh.  
  
“It’s alright, dad.” She exchanged another amused look with Geoff, who pulled Ryan up by the wrist.  
  
“Come on, I know when we've been banished,” Geoff said, pulling him from the room. He held out his hand to Gavin. “You too, Gavin, come on.”  
  
When Lindsay turned back to look at Barbara, her eyes were sparkling and she was holding up the pink slippers with a grin. “So, you ready to learn the secrets of the universe?”    
  
*****  
  
Barbara slipped out the bedroom an hour later, after Lindsay had fallen asleep in the middle of _Legally Blonde_. Ryan and Geoff were hovering anxiously in the hallway. “She alright?” Geoff asked.  
  
Barbara silently closed the door behind. “Fell asleep, poor thing. It’s not unusual. The pain makes you sleepy, after it passes,” she explained.  
  
“So, pink bunny slippers?” Geoff grinned. “That wasn’t in the literature.”  
  
“No, and I’ve got some more advice, for you guys.” She giggled as she could see Ryan basically snap to attention in the hallway, assuming a loose parade rest. She half-expected him to take out a notebook and start scribbling. “Okay, first things first: It's not that weird for things to be like this, especially the first time. But if the cramps are always this bad, or if she passes out or throws up, you go see a doctor 'cause that shit ain't right. "  
  
Both men nodded seriously and jumped a little when Barbara clapped her hands together. "Okay, the easy stuff, now: chocolate stash. There _always_ needs to be a chocolate stash. Get some decent bars, put them in a box or a high shelf somewhere, just for emergencies.”  
  
“Emergencies?” Ryan asked.   
  
“You do not want to cross a woman on a chocolate hunt, Ryan, and you definitely don’t want to _be_ one when there isn’t any around. It leads to crying and broken furniture. Now, more importantly, do you have a closed bin in the bathroom?”  
  
“No?”  
  
“Get one.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Just trust me on this, okay? Get a small bin with a lid, preferably a pedal bin, always put bags in.”  
  
“Okay, bin, bags, got it. Anything else?”  
  
“Yes,” a vicious twinkle appeared in Barbara’s eyes, and both men almost took a step back, “if you  _ever_ pull the PMS card on that girl, I will personally come to your house and stab you.”  
  
Ryan actually almost honest-to-god saluted her; she saw his arm go up to do it. “Yes, ma’m,” he said stiffly.  
  
Geoff snickered behind his hand.  
  
“And Ryan?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“You can calm down now,” Barbara chuckled.  


End file.
